Lake drained twice by sinkhole should NOT refill from Florida aquifer.

madfloridian

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Apr-16-07 07:17 PM
Original message

Lake drained twice by sinkhole should NOT refill from Florida aquifer.

Even if the residents pay for it themselves, it should not be permitted by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The residents around the lake refilled it in the 70s, drilling their well and paying for it themselves, but twice is too much. About a billion gallons of water to fill it...too much and should not be permitted from our fragile resources.

Residents of private lake wait for sinkhole repair

LAKELAND - Scott Lake is still not back to its old self. The 285-acre private lake is waiting for a permanent fix - and rain showers to fill it back up - after a gator-gulping sinkhole drained it in June.

Residents will need approval for work on the shore and lake bottom from the DEP. The plan is not yet in the DEP pipeline, according to a spokeswoman for the agency.

Residents will also need to deal with the Southwest Florida Water Management District if they want to drill a well to refill the approximately 1 billion gallons of water sucked down the thirsty sinkhole.

"Plugging the hole has to come first," said Curry.

These are million dollar plus homes. The lake was made private by them years ago. The public is not allowed access to it, not even for fishing. It was sad when they did that. Some of my dad's happiest memories were fishing in that lake. How they did it, I don't really know.

I wrote about that dried up lake twice before.

The Lake is Dry

The water just drained out of it. It is kind of an odd situation, bringing forth mixed emotions about state and county help. It was made private by the homeowners there years ago, no public access to it though I understand it is state-owned land.

LAKELAND -- After more than a week of losing water to what may be four sinkholes -- where fish and turtles were gobbled in dramatic gulps -- Scott Lake is now little more than a stinky, puddled beach.

"The lake is dry for all intents and purposes," Rick Powers, president and CEO of BCI Engineers & Scientists, said Thursday.

It has taken nearly 10 days for the 285-acre lake, which is ringed with the Who's Who of Lakeland's bestknown businessmen and executives, to drain

And here is more about it, how they went about refilling it in the 70s. I hope the state won't let it happen again.

More on the lake that dried up

LAKELAND -- Scott Lake has sprung a leak, actually several leaks, and all the water has disappeared down what could be as many as four sinkholes. More than 30 years ago, homeowners on the lake faced a similar dilemma when the water mysteriously disappeared.

No one's sure of the exact date or why the water went away. Curry said he thinks it was sometime in 1974, but other residents said it could have been a year or two earlier. The Southwest Florida Water Management District could not fix the date, either.

Swiftmud cut a small channel from Scott Lake, beneath Old Scott Lake Road, connecting to a nearby water source. Rather than wait on Mother Nature, Curry, Miller and other neighbors spurred by the late Bernie Little, the beer distributor, came up with a novel idea to replenish the lake, which never dried up totally.

They split the cost of sinking a well and pumping groundwater into the lake, something that could never happen today without a state water-use permit, engineering studies and lots of time.

But the people who live there have money and much influence, and they just might be able to pull it off.